


Clinomania

by Breath4Soul



Series: Logolepsy: (n.) An obsession with words [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bedrooms, Beds, Declarations Of Love, Dreams, Heartache, Inspired by Dreams, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Fluff, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Poor John, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post Mary, Shave for Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock in Love, Sulking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5658910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p><br/><b>Clinomania:</b> (n) The overwhelming and irresistible desire to stay in bed that could persist for days on end, particularly when it is raining or snowing.</p>
</blockquote>____________________________________<p>Sometimes Sherlock's voice drifted into John's dreams, shaping his thoughts until he woke to realized Sherlock had been speaking for quite awhile. That was when the odd dreams had started.<br/>In contrast to the constant barrage of nightmares and the memories replayed in painful detail, these dreams were mystical - hauntingly beautiful and replete with emotion and sensations John had forgotten were possible. Instead of feeling like he was dying, these dreams made John feel like something in him was awakening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clinomania

"No. Sherlock Can't-" John was startled awake by his own voice somewhere between the hazy twilight of sleep and consciousness. 

What had he been dreaming? Something about intersecting planes. The image lingered in his mind's eye; long and smooth, thinly slicing through the darkness in a fluid arc of cold white and blues. Then from above came another line, hard and straight like a blade, cutting off the arc at a too-sharp angle. He had a sense of an unseen force, beautifully dancing and oscillating between gravity and weightlessness, intertwining in the path of these two. It had all seemed supremely important at the time. It was all so... _fuzzy_ now. 

His words, the sound that had roused him, hung in the stillness of the room. His own voice had been clear and calm with conviction. No guilt, no fear, no pain, no doubt. It was strange to his ears. 

He never felt that certain about things these days, _especially_ when it came to Sherlock.

> _'Sherlock can't' what? How was that sentence supposed to end? Who was I speaking to?_

_Gone now._

John scrubbed his hand across his face and unfurled from the covers. The room was unusually dark and the emptiness seemed to have its own weight and movement. It was difficult to shake the dreamy sensations that clung to him. He clenched and unclenched his left hand reflexively, tangling it in the sheet and pulling tight to make it stop spasming. 

It had been two months since that night when John's world had been blown apart. The night that Mary, _his lying murderous wife,_ had given him the thumb drive with her mysterious past on it. 

After a two week attempt at pretending she had never existed by going back to the _'normal'_ of solving crimes alongside Sherlock, John had taken to bed and hadn't been able to pull himself out since. He knew it was the one place no one would disturb him. 

Everything blurred together in a haze of dreams and endless hours staring at the ceiling. Days and nights rolled past with his mind lost in his dark thoughts, taking comfort in the unchanging warmth of his bed. 

When it became clear John was not leaving his room, Sherlock frequently came and sat on the landing outside his door. He'd run over the clues, or entreat John to take on some part of the case. Then when he'd at last solved the case he'd explain his brilliant deductions in innate detail. 

John listened but never responded. 

Sometimes Sherlock's voice drifted into his dreams, shaping his thoughts until he woke to realized Sherlock had been speaking for quite awhile. That was when the odd dreams had started.

In contrast to the constant barrage of nightmares and the memories replayed in painful detail, these dreams were mystical - hauntingly beautiful and replete with emotion and sensations John had forgotten were possible. Instead of feeling like he was dying, these dreams made John feel like something in him was awakening.  
___________________________________________

Today he had awoke in the early afternoon to find Sherlock's empty chair in the corner of his room. This had surprised him because they'd agreed long ago that Sherlock would never enter his room or vice versa. 

John had breached that agreement to search for drugs on danger nights or to look after Sherlock when he'd been drugged, but Sherlock never had breached his room. 

John looked around. The door was closed and nothing else was disturbed. He pulled off his t-shirt and tossed it away. It was days old and damp with sweat. He stood, a bit unsteady, and hobbled to where the chair was. His leg had started acting up again shortly after he'd taken to bed. 

He ran his fingers along the smooth steel and worn in black leather to make sure it was real. He looked around again, then went back to bed, turning away from it. 

He was simultaneously excited and full of dread to know he would be facing Sherlock soon.  
_________________________

John's eyes searched the window, trying to discern the time by the quality of the light. That was when he saw Sherlock, his profile dimly lit by the warm streetlight . Sherlock was in pajamas and a house coat, sitting on the back of his favorite chair with feet on the seat of it. He was leaning forward with his hands on his knees, looking over John intently. John sat up.

"You look like a homeless man." Sherlock's voice was flat. Non-judgmental - a statement of fact. John hadn't shaved or showered for the weeks since he'd taken to bed. 

"Typically sensitive, Sherlock," John mumbled irritably, but he couldn't help running a hand through his disheveled hair and stroking down the beard and mustache that had grown. 

Sherlock inhaled deeply through his nose, wrinkling it slightly. "Smell like one too."

"I am aware," John growled. "I just don't care," he exhaled slowly.

"What would it take then, John?"

"Take?"

"To make you care, again?" 

John flopped backwards on the bed "Hell, I don't know." He felt the ache in his chest, like something was crushing him. His eyes began to water. He put an arm up over his eyes.

"I - I miss you, John." Sherlock's voice had a rawness to it. John lifted up. It was too dark to read Sherlock's face.

"Yeah, well, not everything is about _you,_ Sherlock." John's voice was bitter. He rolled over on his side away from his friend. He heard the soft scrape of metal against the wood floor, then he felt Sherlock's hand, cool and soft, on his back. John shuttered.

"Don't-" John warned softly. The hand withdrew. The room was silent for a moment. 

"I made you a promise, John... my _one and only_ vow." John couldn't help but grunt as those words felt like a knife plunging into the center of his chest. The tears silently overflowed, making pools on his pillow. He curled up a little tighter. "She may not have been real, but everything I said was...Think about it... _please_." There was silence and then John heard the door click close. He turned over. Sherlock's chair was right beside his bed and empty.

That night was not a restful night for John. All the days he had been languishing in bed he’d been looking for clues and desperate to understand Mary's betrayal. He had spent his time reviewing every moment, every conversation, every gesture with Mary in painstaking detail. 

Now he did the same with Sherlock. Working backwards from that night three months ago when Sherlock had convinced John to trust Mary and consider Mary a client.

>   
>  _”You chose her.”_  
>  _That had stung.  
>  _Didn't really have an alternative did I?_ _  
> 

He relived the way he'd had felt when he thought Sherlock was proposing to Jeanine. The shock and _sting_ of it. John recalled watching the two of them interact in the flat. The feeling that rose in him watching her touch and kiss Sherlock. Seeing the detective appear to have such warmth and affection that John had never dared to consider him capable of.

> _He could have told me it was a ruse.  
>  _Why wouldn't he?  
>  _He wanted me to be jealous?_ __

John remembered the look his friend had given him at the wedding after he'd said Mary was pregnant.

> _Sadness. Longing?_

His vow.

>   
>  _Who does that?_

John came to the best man's speech, and it was all there, plain as day. Sherlock had called himself 

'the man who loves you'.

> _John Watson, you idiot, he loves you_

"Sherlock Holmes loves me." John felt a great weight lifted off his chest so quickly that he felt dizzy. The sadness, disappointment and fear had been clinging to him like a cold fog choking his lungs and seeping into his bones to paralyze him. It suddenly dissipated and he finally could see a path forward. A warm and constant light through the darkness calling him back to himself. He felt joy and hope warm his soul for the first time in so very long.

John gasped. He leapt out of bed and grabbed his house coat. He hobbled downstairs to the bathroom and ran a bath, putting in some nice scented oils. John looked at himself in the mirror.

> _God, Sherlock was right, you look like a bloody hobo.  
>  _Surprised he even touched you._ _

John smiled. He used the scissors first then lathered up and shaved his face bear again.

>   
>  _I_ do _shave for Sherlock Holmes.  
>  _Likes his doctors clean shaven._ _  
> 

John laughed as he sank into the bath and relaxed. He couldn't stop smiling. 


End file.
